walking alongside you

Leaning in ~

09/19/18

I was at a workout class yesterday, and in the middle of a particularly hard exercise, the instructor says “lean into the burn.” In my head, I thought, “sure, yep, gonna lean into it; nope, not gonna lean in cuz’ that hurts”….. but then I remembered that I can feel the pain for a limited amount of time.

And then I was struck by how many times have I encouraged people to lean into their hurt and pain. I have actually said almost the same words my instructor told us; don’t run from the hurt. Allow yourself a moment to feel it.

Pain is something that we instinctively run from. How many times have we heard that pain is our bodies warning sign that something is wrong? When we have pain often our first thought is to take medication to make it go away.

But…what if sometimes leaning into the pain is actually much better than running from it. Allowing ourselves the opportunity to grow in the discomfort of the pain is a form of self-care. We can feel pain for a limited amount of time. We can lean into the pain and the hurt if we remember and know that the pain will subside.